Touchscreen devices (e.g., the iPad® and iPhone®, both sold by Apple Inc.) have become more and more prevalent in recent years. For many applications (e.g., e-mail, web browsing, etc.), these devices display text for the user to read and/or edit. Because the devices often have display screens on the smaller side (as compared with desktop or laptop computers), the ability to zoom in on the text is often important to readability.
In addition, especially for editable text (e.g., e-mail), users may want to locate a position indicator, or text cursor, at a specific point between two letters of the text. Certain applications enable such positioning of a location indicator by the movement of a finger (or other object) along the touchscreen through the text. However, especially when moving between narrow letters, precise location of the position indicator may be difficult. FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art example of a word 100 (“willow”) and the breakdown of that word horizontally into regions that correspond to the locations between different characters. In the prior art example, a user moving a finger over the word would move a position indicator through the letters “i”, “l”, and “l” very quickly with minimal movement, whereas moving through a “w” would require significantly more horizontal movement. Thus, if the position indicator (and finger) is initially located to the left of the “w”, then movement of the finger to the right by a distance x will move the position indicator in between the “w” and the “i”. However, movement of the finger again to the right by a distance x will move the position indicator in between the first “l” and the second “l”, past the location between the “i” and the “l”. Thus, it can be difficult to position the position indicator in the correct location, especially between narrower letters.